As Britain and France were bled white by their World War I battles, the Democrats were drained by a series of midterm debacles in which those in swing states were punished by voters, and all but the bluest of blue were cut down. On the altar of healthcare, Democrats sacrificed the fruit of two cycles of party-expansion, the picking of people who could win in red states and red districts, to bolster the party’s breadth and appeal.

Pretty much that’s what it comes down to. Being dumb. Note, by the way, that Reagan still won all the states there in the map below except Georgia and West Virginia. Then again, he was in a winning state of mind that election cycle, which is why he wracked up 489 Electoral Votes in 1980.

"Reagan's Southern strategy" is the kind of thing you say when you're an idiot who doesn't know anything. pic.twitter.com/mRwrSJyrXZ

Alternative title: So, we may be about to see a constitutional crisis in Turkey.

Short version: the ruling government in Turkey didn’t have that great an election night.

Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has suffered his biggest setback in 13 years of amassing power as voters denied his ruling party a parliamentary majority for the first time since 2002 and gave the country’s large Kurdish minority its biggest voice ever in national politics.

The British general election surprisingly – and a bit unfortunately – doesn’t seem like that big a deal during this particular administration, although I suspect that will change with the next one. At least, I hope so: England’s been one of our staunchest allies for almost a century. It’d be a shame if that went away simply because one of our Presidents happened to adopt a poisonous resentment of the British because then maybe Daddy would love him then.

Their data is, as of this moment (6 PM Eastern), merely test data and not accurate. So don’t report on it yet. But the results for the Chicago Mayor’s runoff*, the Ferguson, MO City Council races, and various Wisconsin elections can be found here.

Let us address the central paradox of the Hillary Clinton campaign. To do that, though, we must first refresh our memories. Specifically, this ad:

Remember it? It is, of course, an edited version of the iconic Apple 1984 ad which was altered to convert it from revolutionary agitprop praising a multinational corporation to revolutionary agitprop praising an undistinguished machine politician from Chicago. And, to be fair, it was successful agitprop. We will be arguing for decades about just how Hillary Clinton managed to lose that primary fight, but she did – and videos like this probably didn’t hurt. (more…)

Glenn Reynolds called this Master-level trolling from Karl Rove’s American Crossroads, and… yeah. Yeah, it is.

Using Elizabeth Warren’s voice to drive home that message is a lovely touch. She’ll either have to complain, thus alienating her biggest fans; or she’ll have to keep her mouth shut, thus alienating the Clinton campaign. That’s a win either way: it’s always nice to see a professional at work, particularly when the work isn’t actually aimed at you. If American Crossroads just stays out of the primaries this time, that would be spiffy, thanks. If they do that, we’ll shower attaboys on Karl Rove all day and even let him have the last brownie.

…Of course, it’s a progressive group of American Jews and the election in question is Israel’s, but that’s probably just a minor detail: “A coalition of U.S.-funded progressive groups has planned a massive get-out-the-vote effort to influence the Israeli elections, targeting communities that are most likely to vote against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-leaning Likud Party, according to a confidential strategy memo obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.” The group in question is called Ameinu, and while I do not actually personally care that it’s apparently engaged in an international Zionist campaign* to influence foreign elections, I would like to note that there’s at least a bit of historical awkwardness, here. Not to mention, historical irony. Who would have thought that there might one day be an international Jewish plot to maybe destabilize Israel?

PS: One other thought: perhaps Ameinu could have found someone to do their voter analysis who was once notaccused of having written a “Jewish Protocols of the Elders of Zion?” Look, I understand fully that Israeli political debates are not for the timid, but nonetheless this Seffi Rachlevsky fellow seems to be at least a little bit twitchyabout Orthodox Jews. I mean, can you be really sure that some of that stuff won’t leak through and get on the analysis?

PPS: No, this article was not paid for by AIPAC. Also: hold on, is that a thing? What’s their per-word? Do I need to fill out a 1099 first?

*Not quite a conspiracy, but they probably shouldn’t have called that memo ‘confidential.’